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The OP here is also the author of MathB.in, a popular math pastebin. He has decided to shut down MathB.in now as a result of this incident. Quoting from http://

The OP here is also the author of MathB.in, a popular math pastebin. He has decided to shut down MathB.in now as a result of this incident. Quoting from http://mathb.in/6 http://mathb.in/6 below: > I have considered shutting down this website several times in the past. But when another of my domain, susam.in, where I used to host my personal blog (archive) was seized and transferred to a law enforcement organization without any notification or authorization, it was the last straw. I do not wish to spend my weekends worrying about spam and unlawful content. I do not wish to maintain constant vigilance on my online servers to maintain ownership. It consumes time, more time than I can afford. This is sad for WWW. We need more independently run websites, not less. The web of early 2000 is rapidly disappearing.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
jorvi 7y ago
> This is sad for WWW. We need more independently run websites, not less. The web of early 2000 is rapidly disappearing. Its still there, but there is a lot less of it. Recently I've decided to go back to ownership of my music and rebuild my old (~20 000 track) collection. Some of the stuff is rather obscure so I end up on niche blogs with pixelated-animated favicons, no weird whitespace and sometimes almost bare HTML. Definitely makes for nostalgic feelings..
tomrod 7y ago
Can we build another one?
- F3nd0 7y ago
  We can build a GNU one! https://gnunet.org/en/ https://gnunet.org/en/
  - speps 7y ago
    With .org's recent debacle...
    - garmaine 7y ago
      Relevance?
      - arthurcolle 7y ago
        1) Both have to do with gTLDs/ccTLDs and sketchy behavior by TLD operators 2) Both have to do with site operators experiencing a sense of uncertainty due to problems with the ICANN landscape. Is it really so hard to comprehend relevance? I'd tell you to try to keep up, but that's against HN rules & regulations, so I won't say that.
        vertex-four 7y ago
        .org isn’t a ccTLD?
        arthurcolle 7y ago
        You're absolutely right, it's a gTLD.
        tomrod 7y ago
        What is going on in the ICANN landscape (outside of the .Org profitization)?
      - dredmorbius 7y ago
        The project is on the dot-org TLD, which has seen some recent discussion, compiled in this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21668003 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21668003
      - em-bee 7y ago
        why is this downvoted? gnunet is an application. the fact that the development is hosted on a .org is entirely irrelevant. gnunet's function doesn't depend on it.
- k2enemy 7y ago
  https://urbit.org https://urbit.org
  - tomrod 7y ago
    I remember reading urbit's launch. It didn't make sense how things worked. What are your thoughts on it?
    - farrelmahaztra 7y ago
      They could definitely do a better job of explaining what it is, how it works, and why I need it. I am interested though
  - crankylinuxuser 7y ago
    Long story short, the creator and the relevant technology has strong fascist tenancies and should be stayed away from at all possible. Cite: look up Mencius Moldbug or Curtis Yarvin. Alt-right 'darling'. The tech itself has him residing as the root node, and able to 'kick anybody off the island'.
    - AgentME 7y ago
      Didn't he leave Urbit earlier this year?
      - crankylinuxuser 7y ago
        I have no clue. All I know is that it's tainted personally by him. Haven't looked back.
    - gjs278 7y ago
      anyone that cares who wrote a piece of technology is part of the problem
freehunter 7y ago
It's easier than ever to built the web of 20+ years ago. Running a VPS with PHP where you had to patch the server and worry about hackers and malware has always been a concern, this is nothing new. But on today's web you can get around all of that with PaaS solutions like Heroku. $7/mo and you can host your custom site all you want without worrying about security or infrastructure. A domain being seized by law enforcement for hosting illegal content (even if it was put there by hackers) is nothing new and has nothing to do with the state of the modern web.
- teddyh 7y ago
  You should probably also be worried about VPS seizure by the hosting provider.
- dna_polymerase 7y ago
  A web hosted in the hands of a few is exactly the problem leading to the problem here. Centralization is the issue. May it be registries, ISPs, hosting providers or anything else. Heroku and PaaS do not solve this at all.
  - freehunter 7y ago
    Was the Web of the 2000s really based on completely decentralized ISPs, registries, and hosting providers? I was there and I seem to remember there being a small number of ISPs, a small number of registrars, and a small number of hosting providers. A site like this would be registered at GoDaddy and hosted at DreamHost. Of course many people could fill out the ICANN paperwork themselves and run a server from their own home, but many people can do that now too. And if you do that, you still run into the issue of hackers being able to install malware on your systems. But instead of the police seizing your domain, they kick in your door in the middle of the night with guns pointed at your family. Maybe it would clear things up if you could lay out for me the exact scenario that combines "the web of the 2000s is rapidly disappearing" with "registrar, ISP, and hosting provider centralization is the issue" and ends with "if that wasn't the case, this website would never have had to shut down". I feel like you're remembering the web of the 2000s very VERY differently than I am.
Kenji 7y ago
Instead of these nasty .in domains, he should just buy a .com or something, where these transfers don't just happen randomly.
mcv 7y ago
It's not just sad or inconvenient for independent websites, it could lead to identity theft. I've got my own domain name specifically to not be dependent on the whims of Google or my ISP. I control my own email domain, or so I thought. If someone can take my email domain like this, they can also it access all sorts of sensitive information. The internet really, really needs to be more reliable than this. Losing a domain name for an unknown reason should be impossible. Also, losing a domain name by accident should be a lot harder.
anon1m0us 7y ago
It's time for a new search engine -- and no, ddg is not it. We need a search engine that doesn't search the new internet. The instagrams, the pinterests, the wikihows, the seemingly every single blog on the internet that is designed to take your time away from you by hydrating you in droplets between sweat lodges. We need create a new internet on the internet that does not search the new internet. DDG brings back content from the same sites google and bing does. I want a new search engine focused on the passionate creatives who produce for the web. The early adopters of the web who have been overshadowed by the adwords and the interstitials and lightboxes. I want content. I want a recipe site with the ingredients at the top and a list of instructions below it. Not 6 paragraphs of why you want to eat this food because of your grandma making it and then people come NO, just tell me what to put in it and how to do it and that's it and load in .1 seconds instead of 100 seconds and then stall every time I try to scroll because you need to tell your advertisers which part of your page is looked at the most. Your advertisers are more important than your readers and it's not cool.
- mchristen 7y ago
  Serious question: Would you be willing to pay to access/consume the content found on the search engine?
  - mdorazio 7y ago
    Yeah this is an important question. A big reason why the internet is the way it is today is because creating and updating quality content takes time and a certain amount of skill, which most people want to be compensated for.
    - balls187 7y ago
      Counterpoints: * Stack Exchange Sites * Wikipedia
      - srndh 7y ago
        Compensation does not have to be only monetary. In stack exchange & wikipedia, the contributors are rewards with points & special titles.
raverbashing 7y ago
But the independent sites are dying for a reason Because you'll try to put something up and you get flooded with spam/hacking attempts and whatnot Because registering a domain, deploying wp, etc if not so trivial Gmail and other "big email providers" are needed since there's no litigation against email abusers, and there's a constant flood of crap to the spam folder Walled gardens are surely problematic but they're less trouble than going independent.
mirimir 7y ago
And losing the domain for "unlawful content" is bullshit. The OP wouldn't be talking like this if he were actually responsible for the "unlawful content". And seriously, does Twitter lose its domain because someone posted malware or child porn or whatever? Edit: So where's a safer place to register domains? Maybe China?

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

jorvi 7y ago

> This is sad for WWW. We need more independently run websites, not less. The web of early 2000 is rapidly disappearing. Its still there, but there is a lot less of it. Recently I've decided to go back to ownership of my music and rebuild my old (~20 000 track) collection. Some of the stuff is rather obscure so I end up on niche blogs with pixelated-animated favicons, no weird whitespace and sometimes almost bare HTML. Definitely makes for nostalgic feelings..

tomrod 7y ago

Can we build another one?

F3nd0 7y ago
We can build a GNU one! https://gnunet.org/en/ https://gnunet.org/en/
- speps 7y ago
  With .org's recent debacle...
  - garmaine 7y ago
    Relevance?
    - arthurcolle 7y ago
      1) Both have to do with gTLDs/ccTLDs and sketchy behavior by TLD operators 2) Both have to do with site operators experiencing a sense of uncertainty due to problems with the ICANN landscape. Is it really so hard to comprehend relevance? I'd tell you to try to keep up, but that's against HN rules & regulations, so I won't say that.
      - vertex-four 7y ago
        .org isn’t a ccTLD?
        arthurcolle 7y ago
        You're absolutely right, it's a gTLD.
      - tomrod 7y ago
        What is going on in the ICANN landscape (outside of the .Org profitization)?
    - dredmorbius 7y ago
      The project is on the dot-org TLD, which has seen some recent discussion, compiled in this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21668003 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21668003
    - em-bee 7y ago
      why is this downvoted? gnunet is an application. the fact that the development is hosted on a .org is entirely irrelevant. gnunet's function doesn't depend on it.
k2enemy 7y ago
https://urbit.org https://urbit.org
- tomrod 7y ago
  I remember reading urbit's launch. It didn't make sense how things worked. What are your thoughts on it?
  - farrelmahaztra 7y ago
    They could definitely do a better job of explaining what it is, how it works, and why I need it. I am interested though
- crankylinuxuser 7y ago
  Long story short, the creator and the relevant technology has strong fascist tenancies and should be stayed away from at all possible. Cite: look up Mencius Moldbug or Curtis Yarvin. Alt-right 'darling'. The tech itself has him residing as the root node, and able to 'kick anybody off the island'.
  - AgentME 7y ago
    Didn't he leave Urbit earlier this year?
    - crankylinuxuser 7y ago
      I have no clue. All I know is that it's tainted personally by him. Haven't looked back.
  - gjs278 7y ago
    anyone that cares who wrote a piece of technology is part of the problem

freehunter 7y ago

It's easier than ever to built the web of 20+ years ago. Running a VPS with PHP where you had to patch the server and worry about hackers and malware has always been a concern, this is nothing new. But on today's web you can get around all of that with PaaS solutions like Heroku. $7/mo and you can host your custom site all you want without worrying about security or infrastructure. A domain being seized by law enforcement for hosting illegal content (even if it was put there by hackers) is nothing new and has nothing to do with the state of the modern web.

teddyh 7y ago
You should probably also be worried about VPS seizure by the hosting provider.
dna_polymerase 7y ago
A web hosted in the hands of a few is exactly the problem leading to the problem here. Centralization is the issue. May it be registries, ISPs, hosting providers or anything else. Heroku and PaaS do not solve this at all.
- freehunter 7y ago
  Was the Web of the 2000s really based on completely decentralized ISPs, registries, and hosting providers? I was there and I seem to remember there being a small number of ISPs, a small number of registrars, and a small number of hosting providers. A site like this would be registered at GoDaddy and hosted at DreamHost. Of course many people could fill out the ICANN paperwork themselves and run a server from their own home, but many people can do that now too. And if you do that, you still run into the issue of hackers being able to install malware on your systems. But instead of the police seizing your domain, they kick in your door in the middle of the night with guns pointed at your family. Maybe it would clear things up if you could lay out for me the exact scenario that combines "the web of the 2000s is rapidly disappearing" with "registrar, ISP, and hosting provider centralization is the issue" and ends with "if that wasn't the case, this website would never have had to shut down". I feel like you're remembering the web of the 2000s very VERY differently than I am.

Kenji 7y ago

Instead of these nasty .in domains, he should just buy a .com or something, where these transfers don't just happen randomly.

mcv 7y ago

It's not just sad or inconvenient for independent websites, it could lead to identity theft. I've got my own domain name specifically to not be dependent on the whims of Google or my ISP. I control my own email domain, or so I thought. If someone can take my email domain like this, they can also it access all sorts of sensitive information. The internet really, really needs to be more reliable than this. Losing a domain name for an unknown reason should be impossible. Also, losing a domain name by accident should be a lot harder.

anon1m0us 7y ago

It's time for a new search engine -- and no, ddg is not it. We need a search engine that doesn't search the new internet. The instagrams, the pinterests, the wikihows, the seemingly every single blog on the internet that is designed to take your time away from you by hydrating you in droplets between sweat lodges. We need create a new internet on the internet that does not search the new internet. DDG brings back content from the same sites google and bing does. I want a new search engine focused on the passionate creatives who produce for the web. The early adopters of the web who have been overshadowed by the adwords and the interstitials and lightboxes. I want content. I want a recipe site with the ingredients at the top and a list of instructions below it. Not 6 paragraphs of why you want to eat this food because of your grandma making it and then people come NO, just tell me what to put in it and how to do it and that's it and load in .1 seconds instead of 100 seconds and then stall every time I try to scroll because you need to tell your advertisers which part of your page is looked at the most. Your advertisers are more important than your readers and it's not cool.

mchristen 7y ago
Serious question: Would you be willing to pay to access/consume the content found on the search engine?
- mdorazio 7y ago
  Yeah this is an important question. A big reason why the internet is the way it is today is because creating and updating quality content takes time and a certain amount of skill, which most people want to be compensated for.
  - balls187 7y ago
    Counterpoints: * Stack Exchange Sites * Wikipedia
    - srndh 7y ago
      Compensation does not have to be only monetary. In stack exchange & wikipedia, the contributors are rewards with points & special titles.

raverbashing 7y ago

But the independent sites are dying for a reason Because you'll try to put something up and you get flooded with spam/hacking attempts and whatnot Because registering a domain, deploying wp, etc if not so trivial Gmail and other "big email providers" are needed since there's no litigation against email abusers, and there's a constant flood of crap to the spam folder Walled gardens are surely problematic but they're less trouble than going independent.

mirimir 7y ago

And losing the domain for "unlawful content" is bullshit. The OP wouldn't be talking like this if he were actually responsible for the "unlawful content". And seriously, does Twitter lose its domain because someone posted malware or child porn or whatever? Edit: So where's a safer place to register domains? Maybe China?